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Wow!! That looks cool!
I use many great knives ( like Shigefusa, Teruyasu Fujiwara, Hattori etc) - but i still love and use my Hiromotos AS - i have a Santoku, a Gyuto 240 mm and a Huge limited edition Gyuto 270 mm made of Shirogami 2 - your work looks just amazing! Great treatment, simply outstanding! Hirimoto uses the soft steel for cladding, so it gets scratched easily - but the job you have done and the new finish... This is an ADDED VALUE!!! And handles.. WOW!! Great! i wish i had it...

Dave, you make some amazing work with these knives. I would have one question - do you manage to gat that lovely contrast between core and cladding also when the core is stainless? I am just curios ...

Dave, you make some amazing work with these knives. I would have one question - do you manage to gat that lovely contrast between core and cladding also when the core is stainless? I am just curios ...

The look you get is going to be different with each type of knife because of construction and steels used. I'd guess that if stainless was used as the core steel we'd see something quite different.

What exactly is that "spa treatment"? I read through the whole thread and couldn't find any info .... do you dip the knives into some acid bath? And how does one get that dramatic irregular line between the core and the cladding (I presume it is that)? Does it work only with Hiromotos?

What exactly is that "spa treatment"? I read through the whole thread and couldn't find any info .... do you dip the knives into some acid bath? And how does one get that dramatic irregular line between the core and the cladding (I presume it is that)? Does it work only with Hiromotos?

Lots of my customers and some of the members call the thinning and etching of the Hiromoto AS knives that I do "spa treatment".

Details:

Blade thinning the knife to the max makes it an even better performer than what it is when new. This service really shows the user what a knife is capable of being.

Blade etching is a chemical process that enhances the appearance of the blade by offering contrast between the high carbon core steel and the mild stainless steel cladding.

The effect that you see from this process on Hiromoto AS knives isn't something that I've seen on any other knife from Japan. There are some that also look great but not quite the same.

In order for the "pseudo hamon" to look that way after grinding away the cladding on a flat stoen the core must be dimpled underneath the layer I presume. I imagine it makes both production cheaper and gives the cladding more surface to adhere to.